The Blue Jays are weighing a pair of familiar names for their first base/DH vacancy, as Sportsnet.ca’s Ben Nicholson-Smith (Twitter link) reports that Edwin Encarnacion and Justin Smoak are “getting consideration” from the club. The Jays also continue to be “intrigued” by Japanese free agent Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, though it “certainly doesn’t seem like they’re close on anything” with the slugger.
A fractured right wrist and a strained oblique limited Encarnacion to only 109 games and 486 plate appearances in 2019, his lowest totals in either category since the 2010 season. When Encarnacion was healthy, however, he still wielded a formidable bat, hitting .244/.344/.531 with 34 homers for the Mariners and Yankees. Encarnacion turns 37 in January and would likely be used mostly as a DH in Toronto, owing to both his age, the Rogers Centre’s artificial surface, and the Jays’ desire to see what they have in first baseman Rowdy Tellez.
With a market likely limited to American League teams and a relative lack of DH openings among those teams, Encarnacion could likely be had on a one-year deal, which is surely attractive to a rebuilding Jays team. Bringing Encarnacion back would also undoubtedly be well-received by Toronto’s fans, as Encarnacion was a very popular figure while hitting 239 homers (the third-highest total in club history) for the Jays from 2009-16.
Smoak was another fan favorite for his five solid seasons with the Jays, most notably his 38-homer outburst in 2017. Despite being perhaps the unluckiest hitter in baseball in 2019, Smoak still managed a slightly above-average (101 wRC+ and OPS+) offensive showing of .208/.342/.406 with 22 homers over 500 PA. We haven’t heard much news on the 33-year-old Smoak this winter, though there was some indication after the season that the Blue Jays were thinking about a potential reunion as they weighed their first base options.
What could hurt both Encarnacion and Smoak, however, is that they are only first basemen, whereas GM Ross Atkins has a stated preference for first base “alternatives that are more flexible, can play other positions as well.” Tsutsugo has an advantage in this regard, as he has primarily played outfield for the last several seasons for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars while also having some first base and third base experience in his past. While Tsutsugo isn’t considered to be particularly adept defensively at any position, the Blue Jays might not mind since he’d be slated for a good chunk of DH time anyway.
The 28-year-old Tsutsugo has an impressive .285/.382/.528 slash line and 205 home runs over exactly 4000 PA during his 10 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball. Major League teams have until December 19 to negotiate a contract with Tsutsugo, and clubs will then have to pay an additional posting fee (as determined by the size of the contract) to the BayStars under the MLB/NPB posting system.
Bring back EE
The move Atkins should’ve made bringing back EE, 4 years ago …. smh
Because if we had EE we would have been competitive the last few years for sure. Also the pick we got back for him became Nate Pearson.
Who hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch so we can’t count on Pearson being the real deal. Yet.
I hope you apply this logic to all prospects, not just the ones you pick and choose.
Point is the ship has sailed ..
They offered him 80mm, he said no.
He rejected his WO on November-4th, 2016. They signed 1B/DH Kendrys Morales to an awful 3 yrs/$33mn deal on November 19th, 2016. Five days… but even Atkins admits they only gave EE 48-hours to decide and that they made a mistake. Oh, and 1B/OF Steve Pearce was signed Dec 5th, 2016 just got good measure to insult fan favourite EE more…inspired EE to absolutely rake the past three seasons though: 104 HRs, 300 RBIs, OPS+ 125 and a slash line that makes his replacements look like little leaguers… .250/.354/.501/.855
He rejected his QO on November 14th, 2016. They signed 1B/DH Kendrys Morales to an awful 3 yrs/$33mn deal on November 19th, 2016, only five days later… but even Atkins admits they only gave EE 48-hours to decide and that they made a mistake. Oh, and 1B/OF Steve Pearce was signed Dec 5th, 2016 just for good measure to insult fan favorite EE even more…inspired EE to absolutely rake the past three seasons though: 104 HRs, 300 RBIs, OPS+ 125 and a slash line that makes his replacements look like little leaguers… .250/.354/.501/.855
I laughed when you put OF beside Steve Pearce.
My point is- EE could have hit .500/.700/1.200 and we will still wouldn’t have come close to making the playoffs.
Translation: we have no intent to be competitive.
I’m a braves fan but I grew up in Canada and followed the jays so I don’t know everything about the jays but it seems like this management is really soft. Adkins and Shapiro sound like scmuck politicians and it’s crazy how they really don’t know how to talk to the media. The jays could easily be competitive with their ownership but that’s never brought up . Sports net is so Bush leauge they never bring up how cheap they are and always saying how optimistic everything is when they have like 3 or 4 good players. Jays are 6 to 10 years away and by then Vladdy will be in LA.
I agree that it’s mostly ownership at fault for our lack of high end talent, Rogers has more money to throw at the club than the yankees ownership.
Atkins and Shapiro dont have autonomy over the roster it appears
At least we aren’t the Mets?
Rogers has more money? How do you figure that?
Maybe not as much as Steve Cohen, but certainly more than the Wilpons!
They have the whole 38 million Canadian market to themselves, and Sportsnet annual revenues are estimated anywhere between $70-200 million. They bought Rogers Centre for $25mn but make over $10mn a year in non-baseball related ticket & concession sales.
The team is worth an estimated $1.5 billion after Rogers paid $112 million in 2000… and Rogers makes net profits over $2 billion annually after interest and taxes… $200mn is less than 10% of that !
They’re just extremely cheap. Scott Boras called it “Blue Flu”. They don’t want to put a competitive team on the field for their fans, and are fine being mired in mediocrity.
Pretty much spot on
What is this nonsense? 6-10 years away? The Jays have a pretty good core in place and a very solid farm. They will be competitive by 2021. With the right moves they could possibly even compete for a WC in 2020.
WC in 2020? AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Excellent comedic timing.
The way the WC is set up, fully half the teams, if not a few more, are usually in competition for the wild card. Look, with the youngins in Toronto and their rather deep system, with a couple of key additions, contention is not that far away. They are certainly in better position than the Orioles.
I think you’re nuts if you think that the Jays will have a legitimate shot at the WC this upcoming season. The Jays will be lucky to come in 3rd place in their own division let alone grabbing the second WC spot. If they shocked the world (which they won’t) and went and emptied their wallet to sign Cole, Bumgarner and Encarnacion I would upgrade their WC chances to a ‘maybe’.
I’m in Baltimore, so I’m not as familiar with the Jays as you would be. All I know is, you’ve got three of the best young players anywhere in Vladdy, Jr, Biggio and Bichette. Plus Rowdy, who showed power if not much else in his first full year, Reese McGuire, who is a very good young catcher, and bunch of other guys between 23-27 years who all are or were solid prospects.
Seems to me, though, the main problem is pitching. Baseball-reference shows that you had 39 pitchers make appearances last season, including 21 who made at least one start. Three guys led your team in wins with six, including reliever Dan Hudson, who is now in Washington. Can’t believe Stroman is just 28, seems he’s been around forever.
Is the brain trust in Toronto doing anything to address the pitching?
“Is the brain trust in Toronto doing anything to address the pitching?”
Yeah, they’re looking at it lol.
Just hope for your sake that they’re doing better than here in Baltimore, where they’re looking for Moe, Larry, and Curly’s uncle to fill in at the fourth spot. Laurel and Hardy’s niece will have the fifth spot.
Shameful.
As much as I would like to see the Jays competitive in 2020, I don;t see it happening. The big questions are will the kid in the infield continue to play like they did in their rookie year, and they haven’t done anything about the rotation and while the kids there show promise they aren’t quite there yet.
I think if they dump Shapiro and Atkins and bring in some people with the know how maybe 2024.
Remember the players were are seeing no were in the Jays system prior to the Shapiro Atkins act.
Yeah they’re looking alright…looking at pictures!
Since its Canada, I suppose those would be moving pictures.
Hope you all kept those jerseys
Everybody kept their EE Jerseys. He hit one of the most memorable homeruns in recent Jays history in the postseason. He was a fantastic player for Toronto and there was mutual love between him and the fans.
Bring in everybody and let Rowdy rake in Korea. Or go with a Smoak-Tellez-Encarnacion-Tsutsugo infield from right to left.
Can someone tell me if I’m reading the logic here correctly?
1. Tsutsugo has an advantage over the alternative guys mentioned because he has experience at multiple defensive positions.
2. He is not adept defensively at any position so you would not want to play him in the field unless you had to.
3. The Jays wouldn’t mind because they will probably just DH him whenever they can.
Looks like trying to talk yourself into buying something.
The Jays dont have a DH or 1B. The only one that makes sense (of these 3) is Tsutsugo as EE is 37 and Smoak is bad. Tsutsugo can also play LF which the Jays dont have either (at least above replacement level) so this further makes Tsutsugo make sense. But the Jays will sign none of them and they will continue to field replacement level or below players at LF, DH and 1B.
The front office is inept. Shapiro has .485 record in his 18 seasons as GM or team President and no World Series appearances.
Look at all of the AAA-types Atkins has collected in the OF and pitching staff: Drury, McKinney, Fisher, Merryweather, etc… all would be better off in Japan or Korea than clogging up the Jays 40-man!
And yet Atkins was crowing about how he turned actual MLB talent in to “42 years of control”… of players no competitive team would actualily want to control, unless maybe they are the Doosan Bears, Hanshin Tigers, Yakult Swallows, Yokohama Baystars or Tokyo Giants!
Was Smoak really a fan favorite?
Damn right he was. It’s fair to say that a big reason for that was because he was one of the only real performers over the 2017-2019 years, but there’s no reason he shouldn’t be considered one.
Smoak had 2 solid season out of 5. If he had 5 solid seasons he would have been traded with a nice return. He wasn’t because he wasn’t solid in 2019, or 2015 and 2016 for that matter.
For all the Blue Jays fans ready to quit on Tellez, why haven’t you pushed to get rid of Grichuk if Tellez is that bad? Or McKinney or Fisher for that matter? It’s not like the Jays are making a run for the division in 2020. Let Tellez succeed or fail. Too soon to write him off. With the patience given to Smoak who was older in 2015-16 than Tellez during a winning run, we can give Tellez another year while the Jays aren’t in contention.
Would rather keep the DH spot open than sign EE. Get everyone except Urena roughly 400 at bats.
Can’t get rid of the regressing Grichuk without eating most of the 4 years left on his contract. Otherwise he’s untradeable… he’s currently the highest paid Jay at $13mn for 2020… after generating a bWAR of 0.3 in 2019 after only padding his stats with 5 HRs and 12 RBIs against the Orioles’ September call ups with 93 at-bats in the September of a 95-loss season, when the Jays should have been giving those at-bats to Alford and Davis instead…. terrible leadership. Any replacement player could be better.
JA Happ. Yankees want to get rid of him. Grichuk for Happ straight up. Yanks need a guy to play “some” CF. Grichuk saves the Yankees over $6-mil in luxury for 2020. Jays save $11.3-mil after 2020. Win-win, or lose-lose. Either way, that’s the out I suggested weeks/months ago.
no, trade Drury and McKinney for Happ.
Tellez and EE platoon may be the best choice though which would still leave either 1b or DH open to rotate other guys thru.
Just don’t give EE 48 hours to decide like you did after he rejected his 2016 QO… Kendrys Morales was signed just five days after that… oops
Toronto gave them everything he needed to make a decision. Including field other offers…for 48 hours. I’m sure that Toronto wanted him locked up before he hit FA and he chose to hit market. Well within his right, like Toronto’s right to withdraw their offer to him..
Maybe Roberto Ramos as a Rule 5 draft pick up? Lefty power bat at 1B in case Tellez still can’t figure it out?
Or trade lefty bats Tellez and Fisher for Wil Myers – who can play gold glove caliber 1B – if the Padres pick up half of his remaining contract and throw in Quantrill and Weathers, both sons of former Jays?
Why can’t Atkins get more creative than resigning Smoak? Or being three years too late on Encarnacion? SMH
If the Jays entertain Myers, deal Grichuk to offset cash. Padres have Hosmer so they don’t want Tellez. Fisher, Giles and Drury with Grichuk for Myers, Naylor, Weathers, Quantrill. Then deal McKinney and Murphy for Archer.
OF: Gurriel, Hernandez, Myers, Alford, Davis with Naylor DH’ing
SP: Anderson, Thornton, Archer, Quantrill, Borucki/Kay/Zeuch/Shoemaker
Pearson comes up around May 1.
Your living in a dream world if you see Atkins being more creative.
Lol @ Myers. Nobody is giving anything up for that bloated contract. Wakey wakey!!
If Smoaky is a fan favorite then Jays fans are really nice people. He’d be mercilessly booed in a place like Philly. We had him in Seattle and I always rooted for him but he was just sort of cringe worthy at the plate. Rarely clutch and struck out with risp way too often. It was conventional wisdom here that he was rushed to the bigs too soon. That may be but he has carved out a decent career and made around $25 million dollars. Whatever happens to him going forward, he can always go home to Goose Creek, SC and live comfortably. I still wish all the best to Smoaky.
Smoak or Encarcion. First either is only a 1 maybe 2 yr player. The 1st baseman of the future is Tellez unless he totally blows up.
Forget the Korean player to much money for a single dimensional player, he isn’t defensive.
With EE you get a guy who can play decent 1st base and is good for about 30+ hr per season. However he is 36 coming off a season where he was on the IL several times and even not getting what he got last season 20mil. He’s not coming for less then 10+ mil and is he going to make that much of a difference.
With Smoak you get a better 1st baseman (gold glove candidate) but you lose about 10 hr per season and he’s 33yr. And I don’t know about fan favourite but the young players look at him as a mentor. And he will come at likely less then 4 mil per season.
“Encarnacion turns 37 in January and would likely be used mostly as a DH in Toronto, owing to both his age, the Rogers Centre’s artificial surface…”
There is a dirt infield at Roger’s Centre. It is an artificial turf in the outfield and foul territory. Unless you’re planning on playing him in the outfield, which he’s never played, then this statement is flat out wrong.
Jays need to do less looking and more signing!